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RE: [LandCafe] Re: Detroit Land Grab

You have obviously thought this through, in way which gives food for thought.At least you admit that UIE/D could inflate house prices/rents :its your

Message 1 of 395
, Sep 1, 2012

You have obviously thought this through, in way which gives food for thought.At least you admit that UIE/D could inflate house prices/rents :its your acceptance of this that occasions doubt e.g "Of course,an UIE/CD raises rent the exact moment it is implemented but as long as it is collected back again in LVT so what?If a percentage of LVT receipts goes back to the UIE ,everyone would afford the higher rents".This is how I see the UIE working but what's the point of collecting LVT if you are going to hand out a quite high percentage straight back again in exemptions ? The" percentage of LVT receipts that goes back to the UIE" could be quite considerable when in the majority of cases two people are cashing in their personal exemptions per house/per domestic plot of land.It would help if the originator of this proposal ,were to indicate what he envisages (in facts and figures) the percentage of LVT back-channeled in exemptions would be.For the moment ,going by the parallel case of exemptions on mortgage interest payments , it appears quite likely that the effects of the UIE will not be as claimed. If double exemptions per land tax demand were in operation,it is likely to be the case that the amount of LVT spent on local services and infrastucture etc would be diminished.This shortfall would ,most likely be addressed by racking up LVT to a higher percentage to increase tax take or by taxing other things as well as land.Not good selling-points from our point of view.There is obviously a wider point about whether you want to increase House Price Inflation ( commonly referred to as HPI in the UK) as a part of the national economy when diminishing the amount of money dysfunctionally invested in landed property is the whole point of the Land Tax in modern times. I am also a tad perplexed by the notion that it is a " good thing"per se for couples to have an advantage in buying a house and paying the LVT (which they can afford twice over).From the outset of the LVT debate ,land taxers have been dogged by the Googleable' Poor Widow Bogey' as Winston Churchill called it when arguing for LVT in the People's Budget of 1909.I got the same argument (that widows could n't afford the LVT on their small incomes) from my Labour MP when I lobbied her to join an All Party Parliamentary Group on LVT a couple of years ago. Politically having a load of single people complaining that they can't afford to pay LVT at double the personal rate of couples is going to be nigh on impossible for Land taxers to deal with,given Britain's dreadful Press and the fact that all the political parties are Homeownerist ( a British term for parties that stay in power through bribing the voters by maintaining high house prices and warding off attempts to control them). There is a point about the liberty which it is claimed the UIE will bring: the Homeownerists are going to shout through their media that the poor widows and other single people are oppressed by a high(er) personal rate of LVT,not liberated.(P.S. We are missing out the question of interest rates which was the starting point of some of this.Very low government set interest rates are going to induce HPI or keep house prices up irrespective of other factors; this is precisely why we have low interest rates in the UK now.Racked up to a realisitic level and people would lose their homes and kick out the government. I am surprised you defend interest rate relief as still practised in the US. This relief plus double exemptions for any LVT looks like a recipe for disaster to me but I am open to persuasion).

--- In LandCafe@yahoogroups.com, David Reed <dbcreed@...> wrote:
>
>
>Since the average household generally contains two adults who can >claim the exemption, sellers could capitalise the double >interest-rate exemption into asking-prices and galloping house >price inflation set in ,made worse when Nigel Lawson (Conservative >Chancellor and father of the more famous Nigella) decided to base >the exemption on the property not the person(s) and everybody panic-
>bought houses before the deadline which inflated house prices >permanently.Another compelling reason not to support the UIE which >also provides double exemptions per household.

Ofcourse an UIE/CD raises rent the exact moment it is implemented, but as long as it is collected back again in LVT, so what? If a percentage of LVT receipts goes back to the UIE, everyone would afford the stehigher rents. As opposed to mortgage interest deduction, it will not set in motion any galloping spiral in capital values since there is little or no capitalisation of speculative value where land rents are collected. Rents will stabilise after implementing the UIE/CD, and increase along with income. Yes, it will encourage people to band together when buying/renting, which is a good thing. Two incomes enables couples to bid over a single person for the same property, is this wrong?

Kj

roy_langston

... Which might be why I haven t done so. Citizenship self-evidently isn t a question of natural law, and I ve explained why residence defined as six months +

> The main point of resorting to natural law pronoucements of the kind you have bellowed is that they are supposed to help us determine what the various human-made laws SHOULD say. That is, if we have a question about know how some law should be constructed with respect to, e.g., who should receive various benefits and for how long or which protections of person or property must be enforced, or whatever, natural law claims are sometimes made--just as you have confidently made them in this context. It is, thus plainly circular to respond, when asked to specify the characteristics of some claimed natural law, "You'll have to consult the local legislature and courts--they'll tell us."

Which might be why I haven't done so. Citizenship self-evidently isn't a question of natural law, and I've explained why residence defined as six months + reflects the relevant natural law principles.

-- Roy Langston

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